


The Better Thing

by Leni



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 13:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8288071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: "You could have the world, if you ordered me to give it to you."The heir of Avonlea wields the Dark One's dagger. To Rumpelstiltskin's disconcert, he doesn't have much to complain about.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Abduction to Love

It's a day after the power of the dagger dragged him to this little coastal town. The ogres are gone, the people in the streets celebrating their good fortune, singing praises for the girl who saved them.

As for the monster that was her tool, nobody cares about his fate.

He would burn them to cinders, Rumpelstiltskin decides.

He would watch them twist on the cobblestones, as their insides fight to crawl out of their skin.

"You would kill me if I gave this back," the girl - the woman - his mistress says, palming the dagger she now wears at her waist.

Rumpelstiltskin smirks. It's not a question he's compelled to answer, but he will enjoy the fear that crosses her face when she talks to him. "Yes," he purrs, and laughs at her flinch.

He expects to be ordered into silence, but she only turns her back to him and goes away.

There are no orders the next day, either. Or in the week that follows.

Nobody comes to the cell he's been allotted, but the dagger doesn't call him away either. On the tenth day, he huffs at the closed door and magics himself away, returning to his castle. He spends the rest of the day expecting a summons, then huffs again when it doesn't come.

He passes the time at his spinning wheel, making the gold that might become the price for his freedom. He might not be able to recover his dagger, but he can buy the help of someone in the Avonlea court.

There are always fools to be played, no matter where he finds himself.

Three days later, he lets himself into the private rooms of his forgetful mistress.

Of all things, she asks why he'd come back.

"I missed the company," he quips.

To his concern, she seems to take him at his word.

"And you have something I want," he adds with more force.

Her hand goes to the belt from where his dagger hangs. "Would you still kill me if you got it back?"

He scoffs. "Of course."

Her lips purse in frustration. "Then you'll understand if I keep it for a while longer."

"Oh, I understand indeed," he sneers.

But she doesn't send him to conquer neighboring lands. And she doesn't ask for him to retrieve the treasures he's reknown for collecting. And she doesn't order him to kill her enemies, or even to terrify them into good behavior.

He returns to the Dark Castle, for a day or two. He meets with Regina, and shows her not to believe silly gossip about his downfall. He keeps track of the runaway princess, and waits for a dragon to slay a prince.

He'd almost forget that he is not free, if not because he has traveled all over the Enchanted Forest, and not once has he been called back to Avonlea.

"What do you want from me?" he snaps at last, almost three months after the first time he saw her. He has intruded in her bedroom again, and again her hand hovers over his dagger, but she doesn't wield it and, to his bewilderment, he starts considering that she's not going to. "You could have the world, if you ordered me to give it to you."

She shakes her head. "I've seen the world already. It's selfish and greedy. Why would I want it?"

He's pieced her story together, little by little, as he donned his peasant garb and walked in the streets outside her palace. Courtiers lie to each other, for no more reason than because it's what they've done all their lives, but the little people haven't breath or time enough for it.

Plain speak. Plainer when addressing a random beggar.

Their old lord is dead. The little army he'd called in, the one meant to be paid with a beautiful bride in exchange, had long been buried where they laid. Or at least the bits that hadn't made their way into an ogre's stomach.

The young princess had been smuggled away. Some say despite her wishes, some say her father convinced her to try and speak in their name. They say she traveled from court to court, begging for help. That kings and dukes laughed in her face. They told her their consciences were not burdened after letting the ogres have her land, if it meant their little victory would distract them away from their own boundaries.

They all told her a pretty girl would still be welcome to shelter in their courts, of course... (and in their beds, and wherever they cared to have her).

They say she killed the one who actually tried to force her.

Perhaps that is why she can look into his inhuman eyes and not scream and run away. Perhaps, now that she knows the twisted horrors of mankind, the monster doesn't quite come up to scratch.

"You must want something," he says now. "When two people want something from the other, and they can agree on the terms, a deal can be made."

"You would deal with me, Rumpelstiltskin?"

She's not afraid to say his name. It makes sense, since she's worn it at her hip for months.

His mouth is dragged into a soundless snarl, unable to lie. "I'd rather give this town to the ocean, and let the fish eat through your eyeballs, if that would free me of you."

This time she shudders at his anger. "Then I'm afraid I cannot agree to your terms."

He leaves in a cloud of purple smoke, swearing in helpless fury to all the gods.

But he comes back, looking for the chink in her armor. If there is one, it's not easy to find. The poor people won't hear a word against the woman who saved them, and those in higher society have no reason to quarrel against their old lord's daughter. He could cause mischief among the surviving nobles, as more than one envisions himself as the lady's husband, inviting themselves into her bed. But that would mean ruling the land as well, and what a poor prize Avonlea is, ravaged and eaten through, surviving by sheer stubbornness. Her stubbornness.

She is... strong, Rumpelstiltskin concedes.

And fair. 

She doesn't tax those who lost their farms or their living to the ogres, but still makes it mandatory that every healthy man and woman work at rebuilding their roads and working the fields.

Avonlea won't be a rich land for decades, but it won't starve either.

A decent ruler, that slip of a girl.

He is so shocked he might even be impressed by the realization.

"Why won't you ask for gold?" he asks on another occasion, after winter has already started to settle in. It's late at night. They are in her little study, where he's been watching from the shadows as she fought their finances into affording the necessities of a recovering kingdom. "Say the word, and I could bring you coffers full of it."

She shakes her head. "And owe the Dark One for it? I think not."

"I didn't say you needed to _ask_." He points to the dagger in its leather sheath. "You did it once. Why not again?"

"I did it to save my people. This, we can do on our own."

"Prideful, lady. Too prideful."

"Clever, rather," she rejoins. "Or would you have us owe you doubly?"

"What does it matter, when I can't collect the debt."

She straightens. "It matters, Rumpelstiltskin. I know the taste of no choices left, and you'd have me do the same to others?"

"You still hold my dagger," he remarks.

Her shoulders give a little shrug. "You still refuse to make a trade."

After a moment of thought, he gives a jerky nod.

"I'd like very much to live," she says quickly, as if afraid he'll turn down her terms before hearing her out. "I'd like my people to be allowed to prosper."

He waits.

In the silence that follows, he eyes her closely. Gives a few steps to stand right before her, staring into her eyes as if he could see into her very soul. "A-a-a-and," he singsongs leadingly, "what else?"

She meets his gaze, still unafraid, and says nothing.

"So that's it? You'll leave the beast free and trust his word?" He wants to shake her shoulders. Instead he lets out a nasty laugh. It makes sense, at last, that this girl grabbed his dagger when Cora at her mightiest couldn't even come close. "Not one thought for yourself, huh? No wish to enslave the Dark One and drive him to his knees."

Her snort is loud. "When my own knees stop being so sore, maybe I'll consider it."

That makes him laugh again, and to his surprise, there's a hint of a smile on her face as well. A bitter smile, sure, but still a sign that she might indeed understand.

His protection spells were useless against her, if she meant no harm.

"You could have asked, dearie."

"And given what in exchange?"

No gold, no lands, not even the promise of healthy crops. But he wouldn't have accepted any of those as payment. "We could have worked something out," he says, leaning closer to her, his voice a suggestive croon.

The fist that tightens at his heart is a surprise, after so long without the dagger pulling at him.

"No," she says. Then she lifts her head. Looks at him. "You're not interested in that, anyway."

"Tch. Details," he manages, his breath harsher and forcing himself not to look down at her hand wrapped around the hilt of his dagger. Slowly, she lets go, and he lets his imagination draw a lovely picture of his hands around her neck. "But that's the past, which is well dead and gone. Now you do have something I want, and I find I can be generous if it'll convince you to give it away."

"I want to live," she says again.

He licks his lips, unused to a trade so much in his favor when he hasn't arranged for it.

But he's no fool.

"Your life, then," he says, giving her a bow. "With my sincere wishes for your and your people’s prosperity."

She exhales, all glad relief, and rushes to untie his dagger from her person.

He can't help but snatch it away from her hands, vanishing it in the next breath. "It was interesting to meet you," he says, surprising himself at his honesty.

"You can come back, you know." She gives him a pretty curtsy. "You are welcome. If you wish."

His eyes narrow at the invitation. "Why would I?"

Her lips curve into a teasing grin. "Because you'll miss the company?"

He throws his head back in laughter.

Then stops laughing when he discovers that she's not wrong.

(She will be smiling when she sees him again.)

Later he will find out about her thirst for knowledge, her easy grasp of the written word. He will mention the library in his castle, and she'll claim not to believe him until she's seen it with her own eyes. She will complain about the dust in his castle, and insist proudly to be given a rag and a duster, in exchange for an armful of books to take back home.

Later still, she will open his curtains (and almost kill herself in the process), and he will let the sunshine into his castle for the first time in decades (and never wonder why he wouldn't let her crash against the stone floor).

He gives her a spelled key, able to let her through the guarded gates and into his castle, and will claim that he's tired of fetching her back and forth.

(He almost jumps out of his skin, when she smiles and reaches out to hug him.)

"Why do you spin so much?" she'll ask one day.

"To forget."

"Forget what?"

There will be a quip on the tip of his tongue, because by now he will like to hear her laugh. But her question sounds sincere, and what's a piece of his history, to the woman who has held his soul and his will in her hands and handed them back?

"I had a son, once."

"Oh."

He will tell her about Baelfire, sometimes. When Snow White trades a hair for a potion, he tells Belle about his son's attempts at spinning; and when the shepherd trades a cape for information, he tells Belle of the boy's knack for setting a snare.

The closer he gets to the World Without Magic, the more he will want someone else to know of Bae.

One night, while a wedding ball takes place in sheer defiance of the witch who swore vengeance on the bride and groom and everything they hold dear, Rumpelstiltskin tells her about a boy who slipped into a faraway world, out of the reach of the most powerful wizard in the realms. "I couldn't follow him," he confesses, looking away. "I just _couldn't_."

Her hand wraps around his wrist, sliding up to let her fingers thread with his.

She says nothing.

No reassurances. No blame.

She also knows of fathers who can't follow where their children lead. 

(She's told him, already, about the optimistic girl who believed in the kindness of her neighbors. Who insisted to her Papa that all would be solved, if only she could reach the good people in the other courts. It was a girl who believed in heroes, once upon a time.)

"I was so scared," he confesses, tightening his grip onto her hand.

"My father was too brave," she answers, then shrugs. "Doesn't seem to matter much, in the end."

But she didn't doubt her father's love.

"Well," she will say when he points that out, "that's why you're trying to reach Baelfire, isn't it? To make sure he knows."

He won't tell her of what it entails, to travel to that world.

He doesn't want to hear her disapproval. He also has no idea how he'd deal with her acceptance.

...and she has accepted so much about him.

(The thief, tortured in his dungeons. The trio of witches, almost ending her life over a trinket. The dark stories behind each item in their pedestals.)

"After all this time," he will ask her once, "after all you know about me... why would you still come to visit?"

"I've lost everyone that mattered to me," she tells him. "I think that's taught me that, when you find someone worth your time and who makes you laugh, you never give up trying to be friends with them." And when he stares at her, her eyes will dance with mischief as she adds, "Then there's your library, of course."

She makes him laugh, too.

Maybe that is why he doesn't push her away the day she leans in and kisses him on the lips.

And maybe that is why he kisses her back.

"Tell the truth, Rumpelstiltskin," she says, her breath mingling with his, "you're happy I finally did that."

Closing his eyes, brushing his nose against hers, he will confess, "I'm not unhappy."

It's not true love.

Neither of them puts too much stock on hope, to believe in such things. But he is the only man who hasn't demanded anything from her. And she is the only woman who hasn't tried to use him.

It's trust. And that might be the better thing.

It's not true love.

(But, maybe, in another world, it could grow to be.)

 

The End  
15/10/16

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it!
> 
> Please stop by the comment box before closing this window. :)


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